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Why Salespeople Hate CRMs (And What You Can Do About It)

Most CRMs don’t empower salespeople. They hate using it. Why? They see CRM as a tracking tool for managers. Also, they spend more time trying to learn how to use CRMs than actually using them.

If you’re reading this article, you probably think about whether to purchase a CRM or not. In the worst case, you might be here because you’re wondering why no one’s using your current platform. This came as no surprise as 76% of sales leaders report that their team doesn’t use the majority of the tools in their CRM. Either way, we’re here to help you understand why salespeople hate using CRMs and what you can do about it.

4 Reasons Why Salespeople Hate Using CRMs

  • It has no direct impact on improving sales performance

Managers usually get too excited about tracking metrics, including those not relevant to their organization’s key sales performance indicators. This is not empowering for salespeople; instead, it will worsen your current system.  Here are the reasons why:

  • You will collect more data than you need.
  • You will focus on things that aren’t priorities.
  • You’ll end up with too many KPIs and be overwhelmed.
  • You will reinforce bad KPI habits and a misunderstanding of performance management.

Managers must address this as soon as possible, as research found that 18% of sales leaders say their CRM has caused them to lose opportunities or revenue.

  • It feels like “the big boss” is always watching

CRMs for salespeople help optimize their daily schedules and prioritize tasks that ensure customer satisfaction is always great. It also enables salespeople to contact key prospects on time to not waste any sales opportunity.

However,  the benefits of having a CRM diminished when users saw it as a tool to monitor every aspect of their activity. With this, managers should be able to choose the right solution that won’t work as an activity monitoring system because it is not empowering. In fact, when people feel that they are micromanaged, they tend to have adverse reactions and unconscious thoughts of protecting their freedom, even if it means going against their leaders.

  • The data implies that they’re not doing their job

The problem with some CRMs for salespeople is that they usually provide data with no context. With this, it will just flat-out show whether your salespeople are meeting their KPIs or not.

A good business solution should be there to help your salespeople. And, instead of just telling them that they have failed in their goals, CRMs must be able to determine where it went wrong. Your platform must be able to show the areas of improvement and support you to create data-backed strategies and solutions that will empower your salespeople with their core task, which is to bring in money.

  • They see it as just another task

In a survey, 50% of sales leaders claim that their CRM is difficult to use. So, it’s not surprising that most see it as just another hectic task that won’t even help them sell. This is alarming, considering that salespeople spend an average of 5.9 hours per week manually logging data into CRM for a new report.

What Can You Do About Your Salespeople Who Hate Using CRMs

It’s hard to require your team to use your current CRM if 47% of sales leaders don’t even believe that their platform is capable of helping them meet their goals. However, not all business solutions are like this. Decision-makers have to choose the right platform to empower their organization instead of just providing them with irrelevant metrics.

For instance, The Sales Machine is an all-in-one business solution that does more than your current platform. It does not work to watch your team’s activities. Instead, it gives you a data-backed overview of what you need to know to improve your operations and strategies.

Want to learn more about The Sales Machine? Schedule a FREE discovery call with our team here.